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Smooth jazz is commercially oriented crossover jazz music. Although often described as a "genre", it is a debatable and highly controversial subject in jazz music circles. As a radio format, however, smooth jazz radio became the successor to easy listening music on radio station programming from the mid-1970s through the early 1990s.
During the mid-1970s in the United States, it was known as "smooth radio"; the genre was not termed "smooth jazz" until the 1980s.
The term itself seems to have been birthed directly out of radio marketing efforts. In an industry focus group in the late 1980s, one participant coined the phrase "smooth jazz" and it stuck.
The popularity of smooth jazz as a radio format grew in the '80s and '90s, but gradually declined in the early 2000s. By 2009, many stations including in NYC, Washington, DC, and Boston had switched away from the format. Jazz of the 00s - Jumping The Great Divide - Popmatters "the market for jazz was starting to get less rigid too. “Smooth jazz” was by far the dominant market force in jazz at the end of the century, and it sidetracked the artistic lives of some musicians who might have made more interesting music but for the draw of big paydays. But the radio stations playing sax-and-synth dominated lite funk faded in the first decade of the 21st century. 2008 marked the death of the smooth jazz stations in both New York and Washington, DC"
“Smooth jazz” was by far the dominant market force in jazz at the end of the century, and it sidetracked the artistic lives of some musicians who might have made more interesting music but for the draw of big paydays. But the radio stations playing sax-and-synth dominated lite funk faded in the first decade of the 21st century. Jazz of the 00s - Jumping The Great Divide - Popmatters
Other early popular releases include guitarist George Benson's 1976 cover/version of "Breezin'" and flugelhorn player Chuck Mangione's "Feels So Good" in 1977. Others are "What You Won't Do for Love" by Bobby Caldwell in 1978, jazz fusion group Spyro Gyra's 1979 instrumental song "Morning Dance" and the 1981 collaboration between Grover Washington Jr. and Bill Withers on "Just the Two of Us".
Smooth jazz grew in popularity in the 1980s and 1990s as Anita Baker, Sade, Al Jarreau, Grover Washington Jr. and Kenny G released multiple hit songs.
Music reviewer George Graham argues that the "so-called 'smooth jazz' sound of people like Kenny G has none of the fire and creativity How smooth jazz took over the '90s - Vox on YouTube that marked the best of the fusion scene during its heyday in the 1970s".Graham, George, review.
Digby Fairweather, before the start of UK jazz station theJazz, denounced the change to a smooth jazz format on defunct radio station 102.2 Jazz FM; he stated that the owners GMG Radio were responsible for the "attempted rape and (fortunately abortive) re-definition of the music — is one that no true jazz lover within the boundaries of the M25 will ever find it possible to forget or forgive."
Critical and public reception
The smooth jazz genre experienced a backlash exemplified by critical complaints about the "bland" sound of top-selling saxophonist Kenny G, whose popularity peaked with his 1992 album Breathless.
See also
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